Читать книгу Blood Ties Book Two: Possession - Jennifer Armintrout, Jennifer Armintrout - Страница 11

If the dead priest hadn’t owned a television, Cyrus might never have known what was happening.

Not that he felt he owed the Father any gratitude. Cyrus hated television. Since its horrible birth, the blasted thing was all humans could talk about. In this wretched captivity, though, Cyrus needed something to occupy his mind, and he wasn’t about to take up Bible study.

The Mouse still slept. After she’d finished crying and he’d rested long enough to manage sitting upright again, he’d demanded she bring him a first aid kid to bandage her bruised and bloody neck. He’d let her sleep in the bed. He had no use for it. The care and, God help him, nurturing, he’d displayed had unsettled him. There’d been no chance of sleeping after that.

For the first few hours, he’d busied himself ripping pages from the Bible on the shelf to make paper cranes. He’d worked through the first half of Genesis when he grew bored and flipped on the television. It helped him cover the sounds from upstairs. Though any sensible vampire would have been sleeping by now, the Fangs seemed content to blast pounding, repetitive noise that barely qualified as music.

There were three channels, and only one showed anything of interest. The local news anchorwoman wore too much rouge and her hair looked like one perfectly molded plastic piece. Exactly the kind of woman Cyrus liked to charm, then torture to death. He leaned forward in his chair.

“Authorities in Louden County are calling off their search for three people who were reported missing after a church fire in Hudson.” The picture cut to three photos. The dead priest and nun, and a pretty girl with a bright smile wearing a cotton sundress.

The Mouse.

The anchorwoman’s nasal voice continued. “Police say Father Bartholomew Straub, Sister Helen Jacobs and Stacey Pickles were working at Saint Anne Catholic Church on Friday when the fire broke out, but the three have not been seen since. Footprints leading away from the building suggest they may have attempted to walk to safety, but with desert temperatures reaching record highs over the weekend, they are presumed dead.”

Cyrus eyed the girl on the bed, shaking his head. “Pickles?”

More disturbing than the Mouse’s ridiculous name—though barely—was the matter of the fire. Why would the authorities believe the building had burned? And if the weekend had passed…

“Get up.” He stood, glad of the little strength sleep had returned to him, and shook her. “What day is it?”

She stared at him in bleary confusion. “Tuesday or Wednesday. I lost track. You’re standing.”

Tuesday or Wednesday. Which meant he’d been raised on Monday. But they’d been here since Friday. “What happened when people showed up for Mass on Sunday?”

“I don’t know. No one came. When Father Bart mentioned it to…” She wet her lips. “That’s when they killed him. He tried to tell them people would be coming soon for services. They laughed at him and said no one was coming to help us.”

Cyrus turned away from her tears. They might spark that dangerous human guilt in him, and he had no time for it now. “Did they tell you why?”

“No. They just started killing.”

“But they kept them for two days before they killed them. Why?” The timeline didn’t make sense. If he’d taken hostages, he would have dispensed with the useless ones right away.

When he turned to face the Mouse, her eyes were wide and rimmed with red. “They were doing things. Occult things. Satan worship.”

“Impossible. The Fangs think Satanists are pussies.” When she flinched at his coarse language, it buoyed his mood. “What, exactly, were they doing?”

She curled her legs beneath her and toyed with the hem of her dress. A perverse memory of the night before came to his mind. He expected guilt, and when it didn’t come he found its absence far more disturbing than its presence would have been.

As if sensing the change in him, she wrapped her arms across her chest, hugging herself. “I don’t know what they were doing. They didn’t tell us. But I heard them say the time had to be right, they had to be sure it was him. And they needed Father Bart’s hand.”

“He had to take part in the ritual?” It made sense. Though Cyrus didn’t believe in all the Catholic tripe he’d been made to swallow as a child, the power of a priest was similar to, if not greater than, that of a practiced magician.

“Not him. Just his hand.” The words left her in a whisper. “The rest of the stuff they did to them, that was for fun.”

“Why did they spare you?” Cyrus sat beside her on the bed, ignoring the sting of shame he felt when she cringed from him. “Why not use you and feed from you like they did the nun?”

“Because I wasn’t as fun.” She trembled as she spoke. A tear slid down her cheek. “I didn’t scream or pray. That’s what they wanted. They wanted her to pray while they did it.”

The thought would have amused Cyrus in the past, but it didn’t now. Not when this girl was so visibly traumatized by what she’d seen. “Why didn’t you?”

For the first time, the Mouse looked him in the eye. He saw no life or hope in those dull brown depths. Her body steadied, and her voice was strong. “Because no one was listening.”

She sounded so like him centuries ago. He tried to keep the emotion from his tone as he spoke. “That is the most important thing you’ll ever learn. Because no one is listening, and no one is looking out for you.”

She broke down then, gulping great lungfuls of air as she sobbed.

He stood and walked to the tiny kitchenette, trying to ignore the trembling in his legs. He would not abide becoming so weak again, so fast. “We’re out of milk.”

“What’s happening?” Her face was swollen and red from crying, contrasting starkly with the white gauze at her neck. “What are they doing?”

“I have no idea.” He limped to the refrigerator and opened it, then sniffed a potentially suspicious carton of orange juice. It seemed safe enough. But his balance was not. He slammed the carton on the counter, grabbing the edge for support, but tumbled to the floor. The Mouse was at his side in an instant, helping him to his feet and guiding him to a chair.

“I don’t need your help,” he sniped, but accepted it anyway.

The Mouse took a glass from the cabinet, then, almost as an afterthought, grabbed another. Her hands shook as she poured the juice.

He considered offering some comfort to her, but dismissed it. He’d already been kind to her, and he didn’t want it to become a habit. “On the news, they said they’ve called off the search for the three of you. And the church has burned down.”

“That’s impossible.” She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand. “They must have been talking about something else.”

“Stacey Pickles?” He watched the recognition flash in her eyes before he continued. “They think you died in the desert.”

“They’re looking for me?” Hope, then bleak terror crossed her face. “Why do they think this place has burned down?”

“I don’t know. There are spells, called glamours, that make a person see what the caster wishes them to see. But to make a whole building disappear, and do it convincingly to fool many people…that takes power I don’t believe exists.” He shook his head. “Are you going to give me any of that juice?”

She came forward slowly, like a wild animal unaccustomed to humans, and set the glass carefully before him. “They brought you back from the dead. They must know something you don’t.”

The very notion that she would speak to him so boldly struck him as ridiculous. He laughed and took a long swallow from his glass. The juice was as thick as blood, but cold and with an unpleasant texture. “I can’t get used to this.”

“To what?” She didn’t sound as if she cared.

That alone made him wonder why he’d spoken to her at all. The solitude, he guessed, not only of the last few days, but his long death, as well. It was enough to keep him talking. “Living like a human. It’s been so long since I’ve had to fuel my body with food and liquid. It’s unpleasant.”

“No. What will be unpleasant is starving to death when the food runs out.” Her expression was grim.

“That won’t happen. At least, not to me,” he said by way of reassurance. “Your life depends on it, remember. You’re supposed to be caring for me.”

She looked insulted. “I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about me. They’re not going to worry about keeping me alive after they’re done with you.”

He pulled one of the chairs from the flimsy Formica table and sat. “And what, exactly, is it they’re going to do with me?”

“I don’t know.” She chewed her lip. “Something bad.”

“Madame, your powers of perception astound me.” He closed his eyes, mind working furiously. What he needed was a plan, some currency to bargain with the Fangs for information. What he needed was—

“You talk funny. Where are you from?”

What he needed was for the Mouse to stop talking. “England. But most recently I was confined to a watery blue purgatory. I don’t remember the address.” He paused. “Were you there? When they did the ritual?”

Her eyes grew hollow and faraway again. Her voice came out in a whisper. “Yes.”

“What did they do?” Cyrus pulled another chair from the table and motioned to her to sit. “Were there specific words they said? Did they read them from a book?”

She remained frozen in place, staring blankly at the tabletop. There was a ring from a cup there, and she seemed to have fixated on it. “I don’t remember.”

He tamped down his impatience. It wouldn’t do to frighten her again, not when she’d begun to communicate like a rational human being. “It wasn’t that long ago. I’m sure if you take a moment, you’ll remember—”

“I don’t remember!” She spun toward the counter, where a small stack of dirty dishes and utensils waited to be cleaned, and she swept them to the floor. The shock of her action outlasted the clatter it created, and she stood, her face a mask of disbelief as she stared at the broken shards on the tile floor.

There were two ways he could react, Cyrus realized. He could lash out at her in anger and impatience, destroying any scrap of trust she might have left and any chance he might have to learn more about his dire situation. Conversely, he could ignore her until she was finished with her tantrum, and reserve his feeble strength for more important matters. He chose the latter, as his actions had caught up with him and he hadn’t the stomach nor the energy to do further violence to her.

“Clean it up,” he said casually as he rose and headed for the bed. He settled in and pulled the blankets over himself, but found it difficult to sleep with the sun from the small, high window illuminating the room and the sound of the Mouse’s pathetic sniffles invading his ears.

As soon as the sun set, Max and I stepped off the private jet and onto the still-warm tarmac.

“I love this time of year. Not too hot at night, not too cold. If you were ever here in July or January, you’d know what I mean,” Max said, full of vim and vigor as he carried both our bags toward the sprawling, futuristic building that was the airport.

I hadn’t slept well during the day. My dreams had been full of weird symbols I was sure I’d never figure out, the least of which being a weird trip into the woods bearing a pig under each arm. I was in no mood for Max’s crap. “We’re not here for a pleasure trip. We’re here to figure out what’s happening with Cyrus.”

Max halted and dropped his duffel bag. “With who?”

“With Nathan.” I stopped and glared at him. “We don’t have time to monkey around. Let’s go.”

“You said Cyrus. ‘We’re here to figure out what’s happening with Cyrus’ is exactly what you said.”

My mouth gaped. Had I really said that? My first sire had certainly been on my mind lately, but I didn’t usually make such obvious slips. “I didn’t say that.”

“Yes, you did. I barely knew the guy. Why would I be mentally inserting his name into your sentences? Carrie, is something going on you’re not telling me about?” Max picked up the bag and motioned for me to walk.

Good thing, too, because I was paralyzed with shock at my own stupid mistake. The quadrant in my brain that controls my feet recognized his gesture, and I plodded along beside him. “Not exactly.”

Max let out a long, low whistle. “Uh-huh. Are you ‘not exactly’ telling me what’s going on, or is something ‘not exactly’ going on?”

“A little of both.” I stopped again and faced him. “Right before the thing happened to Nathan, he’d confronted me about a dream I’d had. Apparently, I’d said Cyrus’s name.”

“Nathan was watching you sleep again?” Another whistle. “That’s not good.”

“I knew something was up, but I couldn’t have predicted this.” We started walking once more, in silence. After a few steps, I remembered my dream on the plane and the embarrassing consequences of it. “There’s something else, too.”

“Shoot.”

“When we were on the plane, I dreamed about him.” I looked at my feet so I wouldn’t have to see Max’s face. “When I kissed you.”

“Well, that’s understandable. He’s your sire and all.” A few more steps, and Max realized what I’d meant. “Wait, you thought I was Cyrus, not Nathan?”

“I was dreaming. I can’t control what I do in my dreams.” Did I sound defensive? I needed a hot bath and a long time to recover from the monotonous flight.

Luckily, Max dropped the subject once we entered the building. The fluorescent tubes and pale yellow paint of the customs area made it seem less than friendly, and the stern faced police with automatic weapons didn’t help much, either. And I couldn’t even claim I’d packed my own luggage. I’d been so tired before we’d left, I’d trusted Max to do it for me.

“Where did you bring me? Kazakhstan?” I whispered fiercely to Max as a customs agent rifled through my underwear. “And why did you pack so many thongs?”

Max grinned. “Why do you own so many thongs?”

Once we were cleared to enter the country proper, Max hurried me out of the airport, to a taxi stand.

“Private jet, but no armored car with little flags to pick us up?” I grumbled as I slid into the back of the cramped, European-scale car.

“The Movement doesn’t like to attract unnecessary local attention,” he said in a low voice. He handed the driver a colorful Spanish bill. “Plaza del Major, por favor.”

Madrid, what I could see of it from the cab windows, was rather unlike my expectations of a Spanish city. There were no terra-cotta tiles on any of the skyscrapers we passed. Billboards for American products mingled with advertisements for Spanish movies. Except for the enormous aloe plants growing in the median of the boulevard and the signs I couldn’t understand, I could have been in Chicago.

Then we passed the modern part of town. The glossy shops and illuminated theater awnings gave way to the terra-cotta and stucco I’d imagined. The streets were less smooth here. Wrought-iron railings surrounded tiny balconies overflowing with geraniums. Laundry hung to dry on lines stretching from one building to another. I figured we’d taken a shortcut until the cab stopped.

The street was so narrow we could open only one door to get out. Max had barely pulled our bags from the backseat when the driver sped off, the taxi bouncing merrily on the cobblestones.

“Are we…Where are we?” I asked, staring up at the sliver of sky between the buildings on either side of us.

“He couldn’t drive us to the Plaza del Major.” Max pronounced it with a slight lisp, like platha my-or. “It’s a pedestrians-only kinda place.”

I followed him down a maze of alleys, impressed that he could find his way so easily. For the most part, the streets we walked were empty and dark. Vampire or not, if I’d been alone, I would have turned tail and run back the way the cab had brought us.

We emerged from one alley to find a more populated street. People enjoyed drinks on sidewalk tables in front of expensive-looking restaurants, and street performers danced and posed for the tourists. At the end of the street loomed a huge, dark wall with an arched doorway. On the other side was the Plaza del Major.

I’d never seen anything so incredibly beautiful and romantic in my entire life. Buildings the likes of which I’d imagined when I read Don Quixote as a child surrounded the square. Cafés and shops proclaimed their wares tastefully for visitors, and a huge sculpture dominated the center. There were many people, but the space felt vast. The ring of voices echoing off the buildings and the stones beneath our feet was swallowed up by the open night air, creating a gentle but unintelligible murmur. Above it all, the clear night sky sparkled with stars that seemed so close I could touch them, and its cold beauty contrasted with the warm life on the ground.

The way Max and I contrasted with the life around us. A pang of longing speared my heart. A group of teens congregated near a vendor’s cart, laughing over their ice-cream cones. Near the huge statue of a soldier on horseback, a darkly handsome man lifted a woman in his arms and spun, her blood red, broomstick skirt swirling like a rebellious flag. He set her on her feet and kissed her upturned face, and they melted against each other. It was like a romantic postcard and a cosmic jab at my feelings all at once. I envied these people in a way I hadn’t experienced since I’d turned. Oh, I missed my humanity from time to time, but the point of all that had been stolen from me had never been driven home so incredibly hard before.

“This is…”

“Beautiful,” Max finished for me. “This is my favorite part of the city. It’s so alive, you’d never know it wasn’t day.”

Miserably, I closed my eyes. “I was going to say ‘unbearable.’”

“Carrie, you okay?” He clasped my arm.

I put my hand over his. The romance of the place was getting to me, that was all. “I’m fine. Just worn out from the trip and worried about Nathan. It’s nothing, really.”

“Well, let’s get this over with, then.” He pointed to a redbrick building with beautiful white trim around the windows. At street level, patrons spilled out of a bustling café.

“That,” Max said with a note of wistfulness in his voice, “is the headquarters of the Voluntary Vampire Extinction Movement.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m not quite sure I follow. Is it the two floors of what appear to be apartments upstairs, or the place with the dinner menu posted on the window?”

“You’ll see.” He slung my bag across his shoulder and grabbed my hand.

The café was hip with black walls and blue neon recessed lighting. The clientele dined off square plates with barely any food on them—fitting, since they were all thin as rails.

The maître d’, a handsome, haughty young man all in black, looked up from his reservation book. When he saw Max, he grinned. “Ah, Senor Harrison. And this is?”

“Dr. Carrie Ames. She’s got a reservation.” Max winked at the man, though it was barely perceptible.

The maître d’ seemed to catch the meaning behind the expression, and he smiled pleasantly. “Follow me, please.”

We wound our way among the tables toward a steel door with a black velvet rope in front of it. A small, black label bearing the letters V.I.P. proclaimed its purpose. Diners looked up with interest as we passed, probably trying to figure out how we, in our slept-in clothes, could possibly be VIP’s.

The door was an elevator. The black button blended in with the wall. The maître d’ pushed it and the panel slid open, allowing us inside.

Once the door closed, the young man turned to us. “First time visiting the Movement, Doctor?”

“First time visiting Spain, as a matter of fact.” I tried to keep my tone light. I wasn’t sure if I should give away my non-Movement status or not.

“You’ll love it here.” The man’s English was slightly accented, but very good. “After six hundred years, I’m still not sick of it.”

Our conversation was cut short by a rude electronic voice. It droned on in several different languages before it reached English. “Voice recognition confirmation required.”

The maître d’ held a finger to his lips to warn me to silence before stating, “Miguel.”

“Voice sample confirmed,” the voice informed us after a litany of foreign tongues. “Please enter security clearance code” was the next instruction I could understand.

“Miguel is the front line here at the Movement,” Max explained as the vampire flipped open a hidden panel and punched a sequence of numbers on the keypad. “Nobody gets in without his okay. Still, there’s plenty of backup.”

“The waiter thing is a, how do the spy movies put it, a cover,” Miguel said with a wry grin.

“What kind of backup?” I peered over Miguel’s arm as the keypad retracted and the panel slid back into place. “What happens if you get it wrong?”

“A debilitating electronic impulse would momentarily paralyze us and the elevator would be sent to a secure floor. Assassins would be waiting to detain and interrogate us until our credentials cleared,” Max said with a shrug. “It’s not so bad.”

“You would know,” Miguel said with a laugh, clapping him on the back. “Max is not allowed to take the elevator by himself anymore.”

Max was about to snipe back at him when the doors opened on a reception area so bright I had to shield my eyes. The walls, furniture and ceiling were stark white, the overhead fluorescents blinding. Only the floor, covered in low-pile, slate-gray carpet, and a very frightening girl at the front desk, stood out.

“Anne will take care of you from here,” Miguel said as we exited the elevator. “Buenos noches.”

“Buenos noches,” Max repeated, though the pleasantry wasn’t directed at Miguel.

“Hi, Max,” the girl behind the desk said with a smile. Her expression was a startling contrast to the bleakness of her appearance. Her black hair, pale skin and zombie-couture black clothing reminded me of the bored teenagers who worked at the goth shop in the mall back home.

Max leaned casually on the tall counter. “Miss me, baby doll?”

“Oh, yeah. You know I did,” the girl quipped with a roll of her eyes.

“This is Dr. Carrie Ames. She should be on the amnesty list.”

“Amnesty list?” I asked, looking over the counter with interest.

“The ‘do not kill’ list,” the girl clarified, holding out her hand. “I’m Anne.”

I shook it, thinking it best to be polite in case I’d been omitted from the list. After a tense second or two of looking, she found my name. “Okay, you’re cleared to meet with General Breton in an hour. Uh, and he is in a mood today.”

“General?” I snorted. “So, are you guys more like the Salvation Army or the actual army?”

Max cleared his throat with a warning look. “General Breton demands the respect afforded him as an officer of the British Army.”

“Oh, so he’s, like, a real general.” I swallowed. “Great.”

Anne patted my arm reassuringly. “Only for, like, a couple years, and only in the War of 1812.”

“Carrie is…new,” Max said apologetically. “Remember, some of us are not quite as old as you.”

Looking at the girl, I had a hard time believing she wasn’t a sixteen-year-old human, but I’m a firm believer in never asking a woman her age.

“Sorry,” Anne said sheepishly. Then, brightening, she asked, “Do you want the tour while you wait?”

“Sure,” I answered for both Max and me. I wasn’t about to stroll the halls of the Movement without him there to protect me in case some bored assassin got a hankering to kill.

Anne motioned for us to follow her as she walked to a set of double doors and slid a badge through a card reader. There was a buzz, then the lock popped loudly. She opened the door and ushered us inside.

The inner sanctum of the Movement was decorated similarly to the lobby, but doors with badge readers lined the hallway. Sentries were posted at regular intervals, clad in the same black uniform I’d seen the assassins wear the night they stormed Cyrus’s mansion.

“All the rooms with blue labels like these are safe ones in the event of a security breach.” She pulled one door open to reveal an office. A woman in a long, flowing caftan and a high turban looked up blandly from a pile of paperwork. “Something I can help you with?”

“Just pointing out the safe rooms to our visitors,” Anne said cheerfully before she closed the door again.

“So, what are safe rooms?” I had to admit, the security around Movement headquarters wasn’t as impressive as I’d imagined it to be.

“Safe rooms are exactly where you want to be when you hear the security breach countdown announcement,” Max interjected. “If someone manages to get in, Anne can pull the alarm. You’ve got thirty seconds to get into a safe room—they’re all unlocked—before the UV lights come on.”

“Frying any vampire roaming the halls,” she finished for him. “Pretty cool, huh?”

“Pretty cool,” I agreed, sounding for all the world like a mom trying to imitate her teen daughter’s speech. “But what if it’s not a vampire? What if a human gets in?”

“We have a contingency plan for that,” Anne replied smugly. “A furry contingency plan.”

“Werewolves.” Max made a disgusted noise. “They’re not affected by UV lights. They do a manual sweep of the halls and kill anything still out there.”

The idea that at any time someone could flip a switch and subject us to unnatural, but seriously harmful, daylight unnerved me, and I flinched as the fluorescent bulbs flickered above us.

“Don’t worry,” Anne said with a laugh. “Only a handful of people have the security breach code. Keeps us safer that way.”

The tour continued through a maze of downward sloping halls. Each level had heightened security, like the Pentagon back home. Anne explained what some of the rooms contained, and I nodded politely, but my mind kept wandering to my worries over Nathan.

“And this,” she said, sliding her card through a reader and opening a heavy door, “is where our tour ends. General Breton’s office.”

“Well, thanks,” I offered lamely. “This has been…educational.”

“You mean boring.” Anne sighed dramatically. She might have been hundreds of years old, but she had the sarcastic American teenager act down pat. “Just imagine living here.”

“Wah, wah, wah,” Max teased cheerfully. “We’ll see you on the way out.”

Anne left us at the door with a little wave. Before Max could enter the office, I put my hand on his shoulder. “Okay, I get it. High security, superparanoia. Why are we here?”

“We’re here because we need to help Nathan.” Max put his foot in the door and let it close a bit. “Listen, it’s pretty clear that whatever happened to him was a spell someone cast. The Movement can help us find out who.”

“How? Do they keep a database of all witches, too? It would be impossible! Do you have any clue how many fifteen-year-old Sabrina wannabes there are out there?” I wanted to kick the wall, I was so frustrated. “Can you just please give me a straight answer? You always have before!”

“Fine!” He scanned the hallway before he spoke. “We’re here to see the Oracle.”

“The Oracle?” I repeated, a ridiculous image of the magic mirror from Snow White popping into my brain.

“She’s a vampire, a really old one. She knows things. She knows practically everything, and what she doesn’t, she can find out. But she’s dangerous.” Max blew out a breath, as if he knew the inevitable was about to come. “I was hoping I could convince Breton to let me in to see her.”

“Without me, right?” What was it with male vampires that they thought I needed their constant protection? “No way.”

“Carrie, you don’t understand. She’s completely unpredictable, and she’s got this telekinesis thing…She can kill you, Carrie. With her mind. Now, I’ve got no one depending on me. If I get poofed to dust, fine. But you need to be around for Nathan. I’m not gonna be responsible for getting you killed.” His mouth set in a grim line. “And my impassioned speech is not moving you at all.”

“Not an inch.” I eyed the door. “Do you think this general will go along with your plan?”

Max considered a moment. “I think we have a better chance with him than with some of the others. Just let me do the talking, okay?”

My jaw dropped. “You know I want to help Nathan! Do you think I’d do something to jeopardize our chances?”

“Not intentionally.” He opened the door and motioned me inside.

“What do you mean, not intentionally?” I demanded. But he wouldn’t say anything more. I sighed and walked in to our meeting with General Breton.